Jack Bennett Interview Transcript
John Clarence “Jack” Bennett
Life memories
To my siblings, grandchildren and great grandchildren, extended family and friends who so loved "Grandpa Jack". Granddaughter Robin Dailey Perry who spent countless hours transcribing these tapes and adding pictures to preserve this material, thank you. Whether you knew "Grandpa Jack" well or if you weren't yet born at his passing in June of 1997 you will enjoy the stories he tells of his growing up years. He loved his childhood and sharing his treasured memories. Find a comfortable chair, sit down and enjoy. -Celesta Dailey
To listen to the accompanying audio files, CLICK HERE.
Interview of Jack Bennett (for Kelly Rosenbeck’s school project)
Present: Jack Bennett, Celesta Dailey, Artha Bennett
At the Prune Orchard farm home in Colfax, 1984
TAPE I:
Jack: Well I was born in Farmington in 1915 on April 24th, but uh... I don’t remember anything about it, only what I’ve heard.
Celesta: Do you have memory lapse?
Jack: But there was another, a girl born in Farmington, same day, and so it was a race who was going to get Doc Leuty. My folks or Taylors. And my dad was working out in the field with his horses, and so, I suppose, my mother must have told him it’s time for the doctor. And he unhooked the grey mare off the horse the team and rode over town and got Doc Leuty and I was born right there. There was no doubt that I was born now, but I don’t remember much of anything until, uh... I don’t know when. Like, uh.
Celesta: What were… What location were you born in?
Jack: Location?
Celesta: Yeah. The old house on the farm?
Jack: Yeah. The old house on the farm. And the, the farm itself was uh... about 140... Well, it’s 171 acres, ain’t it? But my grandfather bought it in, uh, I suppose ‘round, it had been early 1900’s. He said he gave seventeen dollars an acre for it.
Celesta: Oh, wow.
Jack: It was right the edge of Farmington itself, right south of Farmington... But, um. My grandfather had the harness shop in town, he bought the farm and he must have moved out on it and hired a man. It was considered uh, not good farmland. It was supposed to be uh, too low and frosty and, I guess, he hired this man and gave him a team of horses and an old, uh, what we call a fresno, you know, a kind of a scraper, to pull out willows and fill in all the holes, and potholes, and, really turned out to be a pretty good farm.
Celesta: Were those flats, down like below the house, were, were those all willows at the time?
Jack: Those were all willows. All that, although, ‘round where the house was had been planted orchards.
Celesta: Oh.
Jack: There was ‘bout forty acres of it, it was orchards, and uh... I can remember some of it though, not most of it, all of it had been taken out but, oh, just a few of the trees ‘round the where the house was.
Celesta: Do you know who they bought the house from? The farm from?
Jack: Well, I don’t really… There was, uh, that’s something else. We can find that abstract it’s got the whole history in it, you know. But the… Well, it was… Oh, what do you call it, the…
Celesta: The deed?
Jack: Hmm?
Celesta: The deed?
Jack: Well, the abstract is what, now you’d have just a deed. But...
Celesta: Oh, I see.
Jack: Uh, like the first people that settled there that… And there was several people that’d been on the place, or different parts of it, uh, uh, right below the cemetery, you know, there is an old spring where there had been a set of buildings and then off from the barn was another place where my dad said there used to be an old log cabin and… but uh, we really, look, lookin’ at the records in the courthouse if we can’t find that abstract, why, uh... I just can’t remember who all the people were.
Artha: I thought your Grandpa probably bought that place before 1900.
Jack: Well, see they came in, uh… My dad was born in ‘89 so, uh, he’s born in Garfield and said they moved to Farmington right after that so, uh, I’ll assume, he bought the place, that Grandpa bought the place, cause I know that they lived right in town first. Fact, they lived in that old house you know, right below, uh, where mom lives. You know...
Celesta: By the tracks?
Jack: No.
Celesta: Oh.
Jack: No. Across from Jack Brown’s. You know that little...
Celesta: Oh!
Jack: That’s where they lived.
Celesta: Is it the, the garage now?
Jack: Mmm.
Celesta: Oh!
Jack: Ya. And mom’s other garage, ya see, after the folks moved to town, why uh… They bought that lot down there and uh, we cut the house in two and moved half of it up for the folks’ garage.
Celesta: Well, I didn’t realize that!
Jack: Yep. But anyway that’s where uh. See Dad used to tell this story about him and his sister, and how they used to run away
Celesta: I’ve heard that.
Jack: And they were real little, ‘bout 16. And uh, so Grandpa took them both in the bedroom and made them lay on the bed on their stomachs. And he was real good with a buggy whip cause he was a harness maker and, I guess, they really practiced with these buggy whips. And.. he just beat the bed in between them, never hit either one of them but both of them was bawling because they thought the other one was getting whipped and… and uh, I guess it pretty well cured them from running away. But that’s where that all happened right there in that old house.
Celesta: Wow! Guess it would cure you. Scare you to death!
Jack: It would take someone like Grandpa to think of something like that. But anyway, the old house up where I was born was uh, well I used to think it was quite a house! But it really wasn’t. You know it didn’t, the way I remember it first it didn’t have any water in, running water in it at all. It had a little pitcher pump, right outside the front porch. It was, like. All that was was a pipe somebody had driven into the ground a few feet and this pump on top of it and that was the water system.
Celesta: Gee!
Jack: But, uh…Then later on, they got, uh… Dad built this uh, see there was a spring house down… Oh, where that old pump is. You know, by the pond.
Celesta: Ya, I know where that is.
Jack: So they carried water up from there too and Mom would take all butter and anything to keep cool down to the spring house. But uh, later… Well, I must have been about six years old when dad built this uh, we called it a wash house. It had a washing machine and a gas engine and a pump in there that would pump water from the spring and put it in a ‘bout a 500 gallon tank on the top of this pretty high building. Pump it up, that full of water and it would run back into the house so that we had uh, cold water. That was the first water system. Then of course the hot water it was just a hot water tank behind the cook stove, the wood stove. Heat that.
Celesta: Would they just dip out of that for dishwater and things?
Jack: No. It would run from uh, boy, I dunno.
Artha: You would dip out of the reservoir.
Jack: Huh?
Artha: You would have to dip out of the reservoir.
Jack: No, this is the round hot water tank it went behind the cook stove, you know.
Artha: Oh that one.
Jack: Yeah, I don’t know whether they just had a faucet on that or whether, uh, it was piped to the sink. But anyway, it was about 1927 when we got electricity out there and, uh, of course he put an electric pump into the old spring and… and, uh, had hot and cold water in the bathtub and the whole works.
Celesta: That’d be quite an event!
Jack: Well, yeah!
Celesta?: Well that must’ve been…
Jack: And it was quite a job to get electricity out there! That was before, uh, it was just water power, and, uh, before we had REA, see, so the water power really didn’t care about going out in the country at all, ‘cause there wasn’t too much money in it. So, Dad had to build the line or pay for having it built from, well from where Jim Stewart lived (it came that far) to our place. And then he had to guarantee uh, actually, sounded like a lot then, but he, it wasn’t, he had to guarantee that the bill would be at least eight dollars a month for, uh, so many years until the line was paid for. So that’s the way we got that. And…
Artha: They...
Jack: The house wasn’t too warm really either. Uh...
Artha: They remodeled it about the same time didn’t they?
Jack: Yeah.
Artha: The front room it was, uh, the two bedrooms in the front room in that one...
Celesta: The one room that I wanted to be?
Artha: Uh huh.
Jack:I use to sleep upstairs, uh. One room had a chimney from the cook stove in the kitchen below, come right up through the little room. And it couldn’t have been a very big room, I’ll bet it wasn’t any bigger than, just like this, maybe twelve foot square. But course there would be a little heat from that chimney, that was the warmest room up there, and uh, it’s where I slept. And I could hear my dad see in the morning, build a fire in the stove so uh. He always made a lot of noise doing it, and shake the ashes down and he’d bang the lids around. And then I’d hear mom starting to get breakfast. And I’d lay there and they’d come and call me and I’d still lay there and they’d call me again and I’d still lay there but I knew that third time, boy, I’d better be getting out of bed no matter how cold it was. I remember that real good. But, our house must have been really warm. Warmer than others because I remember going and staying all night with the Lisenbee kids and we slept upstairs and I remember Mrs. Lisenbee just covered us, it was the winter, she put blankets over us and quilts you know, and couldn’t move, and in the morning when we got up there were little snow drift. It just sifted through from uh, i don’t know whether it were a door or window or whatever. Just out across the floor. And, and our house never got any snow drifts in it.
Celesta: Well, that would be different.
Jack: But then dad hired well, Paul Wagner’s dad did the work and uh, Julius Schwartz, he did some of the finish work, too. And they took out some partitions and made one great big living room.
Artha: It wasn’t Theodore Wagner was it?
Jack: Hmm?
Artha: Was it Theodore Wagner?
Jack: No, JJ. And uh, they, yeah they took out... They changed the stairway so they made one end of the house was all living room. And put in an oil stove which never would heat the place. In the winter you couldn’t get it warm so we lived in the kitchen, really, unless you had company and then they’d open up these French doors on each side of the, and uh, turn up the oil stove and try to get it warm. And when the wind would blow, the curtains would stand right out from the wall, wouldn’t they?
Artha: Yeah, but… Yeah, your folks had the wood stove and we put in the oil stove.
Jack: Oh, they had the wood stove first, yeah, that’s right. And we got, yeah, that’s right!
Artha: Mm-hmm.
Jack: Had a wood stove first in there and that wouldn’t warm it. And then when we got... We got the oil stove after we got married, yeah? And I don’t think they would either.
Celesta: Well there was…
Jack: So, well nobo--- You, you know they didn’t have uh, know what insulation was or thermopane windows or anything like that.
Celesta: Were there wood stoves as efficient as the new ones?
Jack: No. Mm-mm. No… Actually what they bought was something that came out new and it was, uh, it, it was supposed to be more efficient. They called them, what did they call them? Air-Tight? Whatever. Anyway, it just didn’t put out a lot of, lot of heat. But, uh, anyway…
Celesta: Well, what about the food? Like, what, what did you eat like, for regular meals?
Jack: Well, I don’t know whether I’ll talk about that or not. I remember eating a lot of hash. You know what hash is. It was leftover potatoes and the leftover meat and everything and, all chopped up and warmed up.
Artha: You must’ve eaten a lot of applesauce. They said that Grandpa used to have it every meal. He liked it so well.
Jack: And we lived so close to school that um, I didn’t get to take my lunch like the other kids. And I could run home, eat, run right back. And generally I’d take Douglas Harris and Bob Torpey, or Henry Hathaway or somebody home with me at noon if I could get them to go. So sometimes I’d eat their sandwiches. And then when they got there they’d eat whatever was…
Celesta: Well, did Grandma store things in the cellar to eat?
Jack: Oh yeah. Yeah, they had a lot of canned fruit and, uh, then they’d. ‘Course the pork was put up in a 50 gallon… We had a this cellar. It was a brick cellar and there would be a barrel in there with uh, pork put down in the brine and salt water, and all the hams and the bacons and... Then there’d be a… They had a wheel that just fit in that, old wheel of some kind that just fit
in the top of the barrel and that held the
meat down in the, and a rock, a big rock on top of the wheel, and that’d
always keep the meat down under the brine. And, and uh, ‘course lots of times they’d send me out to get some meat out of that thing and that brine would be so cold you just pretty near think you were going to freeze your hands you know to get the rock and the wheel and the piece of meat out of that brine. Yeah, then there was, uh, bins made around there with it, had the apples, and carrots and all that stuff and then sacks of potatoes and, and the old fifty gallon wooden barrel that was always full of vinegar. In the fall we’d make cider and keep adding to this vinegar and it was, it was really strong vinegar! But that was always going, and, and then, she put down. Well, I can remember two things. She put eggs down what they call a water glass. I don’t know what a water glass is, but it was something they’d buy at the drug store, I guess, and put just whole eggs in there. One was an old, old stone churn, like the one you got me.
Celesta: Oh, yeah.
Jack: She’d put those eggs in there and then pour this water glass all over them and it, it um. Oh they’d keep!
Celesta: Like how long?
Jack: They wouldn’t be like uh, Oh I dunno how long. But, it wouldn’t be like buying fresh eggs but you could still use them.
Celesta: Like, did you butcher once a year? Like your pork to keep or?
Jack: They generally butchered just in the winter. They didn’t have any refrigeration, you know. And, and they’d smoke, either cure the meat in this brine or, or we had an old smoke house, too that, that they’d smoke the hams, and...
Artha: They, I heard uh, someone say your grandpa used to do a lot of that and haul, uh, like a wagon load of bacon and ham to town to sell.
Jack: Yeah, there was a building there, oh, I suppose about about 8 foot wide and 12 foot long and that’d been my Grandfather’s smokehouse. And, he, uh, that’s what they said anyway, he’d uh, butcher and cure all his, a lot of uh, ham, and bacon and side meat and when he was all done he would load up his wagon and take it to town and sell it.
Celesta: Did you do a lot of gardening?
Jack: Well… After it’s, I could remember, we’d have a big garden, and that’s something else I that I remember real well ‘cause my dad always had big horses; he was little. Weighed 125 pounds maybe. But uh, he had to have big horses, he couldn’t farm with… So, uh, in fact, the harness he’d throw on them would pretty near be as heavy as he was. You’d wonder how he even got it up there. And, but, anyway, he had these cultivators. You could pull a lever back there and make them wider or narrower; go between the rows in garden, the corn and the whole thing. And, as soon as I was big enough, he’d set me on top of this, I believe it was Belle, Shire horse, in a way a mare, and I as supposed to steer Belle right down the rows straight and Dad is back there holding onto the cultivator. And uh, get to the end of the row you had to turn and stop long enough for him to get the cultivator drug around and start down another row and if you didn’t do it just right you were in trouble ‘cause uh, you’d be tearing out the, the vegetables. But what was the worst, I was so little and my legs kinda, and the horses was so wide and big my legs just, just felt like they was sticking straight out. Oh, they’d just ache and I thought I was in pretty bad shape but we always got it done. But, it wasn’t a, you know, a big garden, but I guess, before that, like when my grandfather uh, and Dad was younger why, uh, they raised an awful lot of like carrots and, they called them rutabagas and ?? mangles which were like a, kinda like a, I dunno, like a big rutabaga. And then things got just tremendous in size, they don’t do that anymore. But uh, so they had uh, well it’d be like two or three acres, maybe. And then they’d put them in the cellar, and in the winter they had a bushel, we called it it was a bushel… It was a square tin, like a big, you wouldn’t call it a basket or bucket either, it was just held a bushel in a way. And so they’d have to go in the cellar every day and chop these mangles and the carrots up with a hatchet and, uh, in little pieces and fed them to the cows. And Dad of course, he wouldn’t eat a carrot and he always said the reason he wouldn’t, hated carrots was ‘cause he had to weed so many of them when he was a kid. That might have been an excuse ‘cause he didn’t like peas either and he didn’t feed the cows peas but... Um, then they had uh, they must’ve had quite a few pigs, I dunno how many, but... At the same time they chopped all this stuff up for the cows, I guess they’d, uh, cook wheat - they had some kind of a steam cooker, and they cooked this wheat and, I really don’t know whether, uh, anything else but wheat or whether they used barley or not, but uh, for the pigs. So, that must’ve been another chore! You know, to…
Celesta: Sounds like a big job!
Jack: Well, yeah.
Celesta: To cook all the feed that you feed your animals.
Jack: Well when, I could remember the old fences when they were all around the place, why, uh, the thing was boarded up with uh, like 1x6 boards, clear around the farm. Just uh, oh, I dunno, maybe uh, like two feet from the ground up then wire above that. And...
Celesta: Was it solid boards?
Jack: Huh?
Celesta: Solid boards? Up that high?
Jack: Well, they’d leave a little crack between them.
Celesta: Uh huh.
Jack: But, uh, Dad said one time Grandpa was going to go into the big, pig business you know, in a big way. So he uh, got a whole carload of 1x6 boards and fenced the whole place for pigs, then decided that he didn’t want to raise pigs. But anyway, like I said, he had the, Grandfather had the harness shop in town and then after he, he uh… There again I don’t know what year it was but he moved the harness shop out to the farm and that was the end of our barn. And I guess that was quite a project too they, of course, they didn’t know what a tractor was or anything and they uh, used what they called a stump puller. They’d, they’d uh, it was just like a windless you know then, and a horse out here and go around and around and it had a cable on it. Well you’d have to go ahead the length of that cable. They put the harness shop on rollers which I suppose, were just little logs and then they’d sink a dead man that which is - if you know what a dead man is- you dug a hole and you, just a, oh, a big block of wood, maybe like a railroad tie or something, you know. You fastened the dead man, er the stump puller to that so it couldn’t get away and then they’d hook the cable onto the barn and go around and around with
the horse winding up the cable ‘til the barn got to the stump puller and then you had to do the whole thing again- draw again, dig another hole, and, you know it’s, boy, I think I’m sure that, that the harness shop set right there by uh, between the Lutheran church and uh, the Owens’. So you know how far would they had to gone? Would it have been maybe three quarters of a mile, er? Hardly that far.
Celesta: It might be.
Jack: And I can’t remember now how long Dad said that it took to get that harness shop out there but it was like, uh…
Artha: Like a week.
Jack: Huh?
Artha: It was like a week, or something?
Jack: Oh, no. Longer than that!
Artha: Oh, was it?
Jack: Yeah. More like two weeks or something.
Celesta: That’d be a terrible job!
Jack: Well, yeah!
Celesta: Well, where did they put it once it was out there?
Jack: Well it’s right where our barn is now.
Celesta: Oh.
Jack: Well not really. It was just kinda below that wasn’t it? Just a little.
Artha: Where the old barn was?
Celesta: Yeah.
Jack: Well, that was it. That was it. Only after they got it there they added onto it. They put a shed on both sides and made it a little longer. But I dunno if you can remember. Can you remember? Like...
Celesta: Yeah.
Jack: Remember the little feed room we had where I kept the oats, in the…?
Celesta: On the right side?
Jack: Uh, yeah, you went, you know we had cows that were here, and horses here and went in this alley.
Celesta: Oh, okay.
Jack: And back there was this little feed room we called it. And that had been Grandpa’s uh, show room for his harnesses and stuff that he made.
Celesta: Oh.
Jack: Yeah, so it was pretty nice. He had it all like, big glass doors and velvet back there with the harness hanging on it. And…
Celesta: Gee, sounded like, I didn’t know he ever did anything like that out there!
Jack: He didn’t do it out there. That was before moving.
Celesta: Oh, I see.
Jack: And then after he moved it why they just tore that, made that that little room into a just for...
Celesta: That must’ve been fixed up pretty nice then!
Jack: Yeah, must’ve been! Sounded good.
Celesta: Yeah!
Jack: But that was our old barn.
Celesta: Well, back to the garden, did they save their own seed or is that something you bought when you planted?
Jack: I dunno. I guess, uh, I think they saved quite a bit didn’t they?
Artha: Oh, they did.
Jack: Yeah, ‘cause I can remember, uh… Oh, sure they saved the seed. In fact, then they…
Artha: Is it on?
Jack: They saved uh, even like the wheat and oat seed and their own if they could possibly do it.
Celesta: Well, looks like you’d be so busy you wouldn’t have time to play around.
Jack: Well, the way I remember it some people mighta played around but I don’t think we did. I remember Mom and I used to wanna go to the lake, Chatcolet on Sunday and, if we went at all we had to be home at 6 o’clock to milk the cow.
END TAPE I
TAPE II
Jack: The lakes all over.
Celesta:That’s all, oh, how did you
Jack: That’s all there was to it!
Celesta: How did you get there?
Jack: We had a car then.
Celesta: Oh, how old were you then?
Jack: Oh, I dunno. I was old enough to wanna go to the lake. See what they used to do before people everybody had cars, why they, uh… Well we had a lot of trains you know like they was, they say, we had two passenger trains going one way and two back the other way every day, four trains through and... But the Union Pacific which went through there had a, well all railroads did the same thing y’know they just have special trains made up, maybe to take people to the lake. In the morning, and the afternoon.
Celesta: Oh!
Jack: A certain time then they’d all get on the train and go home again.
Celesta: Well that sounds fun!
Jack: Well, I bet it was! Yeah. But I can remember, oh, well, George Brown which, you pro-, you don’t know George Brown.
Celesta: No, I don’t remember.
Jack: Well he was a relative of uh, my grandfather’s that came out to Farmington from New York State. And, uh, he had an old Model T Ford. Well, one Sunday, George and Ella was gonna take Dad and Mom and me to Chatcolet Lake, and the old road was dirt, you know, and pretty darn steep going down in there, and going down towards the lake, why, the Ford got away from him.
Celesta: Oh, no!
Jack: Well the brakes had burned out, had the foot pedals you know, and he’s...
Celesta: It was a dirt road back then?
Jack: Oh yeah. And uh, anyway, Dad, it was gettin’ up pretty good speed, so Dad reached over, ‘cause George didn’t know what to do, and he just turned the thing into the bank. I can remember that.
Celesta: Geez!
Jack: So that’s uh, wasn’t too reliable of transportation.
Celesta: Did it throw you all around?
Jack: No! I can’t remember I think- the way I remember it just stopped the whole thing and...
Artha: You probably liked it!
Jack: And I don’t know whether Dad drove it on down then or what happened but I don’t remember that part but I do remember him just reaching over there and turn it into the bank.
Celesta: Was there a lot of people at the lake when you got there? Resort like?
Jack: Well, I don’t think it’d be, I dunno whether it, it’d be nothing like it is now, I don’t- they wouldn’t be near the cabins, you know or a thing like that. Although there was people that, you know we you talked about recreation. And how they did it I dunno, but like, Fish, Fish’s, and uh, different ones would uh, may take two or three months? Well, Albert Leonards’ folks go clear to Priest Lake, with wagons, you know just...
Celesta: Oh!
Jack: and be gone uh, 3 months.
Artha: And Ace Baldwins
Jack: Asahel Baldwin. Would...
Celesta: Did they camp in tents then?
Jack: Just pack up and go.Yeah, they had tents and…
Artha: They went clear to Priest!
Jack: And, uh, oh ya, Albert’s told us about that. Y’know, how many days to get there even. And…
Artha: 4 days?
Jack: And uh, have to ford the Spokane River and one thing and another. And, you wonder how they even knew the lake was up there but... So they, some way they had, some of them had time to do those things. But, uh, then you know like if you went to the lake, later on the folks got to, uh, especially them and Lisenbee’s were always real good friends. And, and they’d, uh, every Sundays, er uh, summer they’d try to be gone a week. Oh they’d really prepare you know they’d have their little cars and they’d made boxes that go on the running boards maybe fold out for tables and have all the shelves in there with flour and everything.
Celesta: So you just cook, did you just cook out on the fires then?
Jack: Yeah. Well, I don’t remember how they cooked, I guess they had a fires but, tents.
Celesta: Mmmhmm
Jack: And you didn’t know what a sleeping bag was you know, you just… Pretty darn lucky if you didn’t get cold before morning because the covers wouldn’t stay on and... But we had a lot of fun, that was for sure. But they’d go, uh, oh, I remember one summer they went to Sandpoint, you know, and maybe stay there too? And, and that little Cocolalla lake? And stop there. And I remember we, well,
Celesta: About how-
Jack: Lisenbee kids and I would wade out there, And we must’ve had the fish hooks. And probably, I don’t know what we had for poles but we caught a few little fish and thought we’d done great.
Celesta: How old were you then, about?
Jack: Oh I suppose 11. I was, I dunno would have been like 10,11, 12?
Celesta: An age you’d have a lot of fun then.
Jack: Yeah, I remember one thing that, I dunno why there’s just certain little things you can remember but we were at um, Liberty Lake, and course us kids were up before daylight and we’d been down to the lake and on the way back to the tents, why uh, this car came along, stop, this man and a couple women in there and, so uh, talked to us a minute or two and wanted to know if we’d like to have an inner tube to play with. And he gave us a big old inner tube, just gave it to us, and we just had a wonderful time with that. But, uh-
Artha: I think people stayed long enough to get good out of the place.
Celesta: Mmhmm.
Artha: We go and whiz right by.
Celesta: Yeah, stop and enjoy it.
Artha: Yeah.
Celesta: What did you wear to swim in?
Jack: Well, that was something else. I remember uh, we musta had swimming suits of some kind but uh, I remember once that Dad decided he’d like to go swimming. Which he couldn’t swim! Er, but he just uh, always wore big overalls, you know. I think he took his shirt off and left the big overalls on and went in and got all wet! But they always had a good time it seemed like. They just, uh… and you think about it it didn’t cost, course then it would cost money, you know uh, but compared to what it’d cost now to do anything.
Celesta: Yeah.
Jack: Cause most the places, well, I think you just camped. I don’t think it’d cost a penny you know to stay any place. And, just did it.
Celesta: Just find some ground and get out and enjoy it, huh? That’s good!
Jack: Yeah it was Dude and Charlie and Mary and me. And we were all about the same age.
Artha: Well, what was the story about uh, was it, they all bedded down in a tent and Carl came into the tent and said, “Ma, hold up your hand so I’ll know where you are.” Something to that effect and everybody held their hand up?
Jack: There was more people in the tent that time, I remember, we… Well, Browns Lake and that’s over- someplace. Towards the, oh, Sprague Lake, over in that area more, I think. But there was absolutely nothing there. Only just a little lake. And we were camping and then uh, some of Palmer Lisenbee’s relatives knew we were there, and they came, so the tent was full of people. And I remember uh, course Dad coming to bed, didn’t know what bed to get into. And told Mom to hold up her hand so he’d know, we all thought that was funny.
Celesta: Yeah, it would be! Well, uh, to back up to the barn again, Momma says you have a good mouse story.
Jack: Oh! Well that was… See we, generally, we always had to milk at 6 o’clock, no matter what. And so, uh, if we get ready, get everything else done, and was ready to milk at five minutes til six you just stood there and looked out the barn door til 6 o’clock. But uh, anyways, this one evening, it was in the summer and uh, I remember it real well. Dad was milking the cow and I was standing there watching him. All the sudden he reached back, grabbed the back of his shirt like, you know, this mouse run up his pants leg and got clear up to here. And he was holding it, wanting me to get it, so I reached down, you know, to get the mouse and he just clamped ‘round the end of my finger, and I can remember, yeah, just bringing my finger out of there and the mouse hanging right on, and dropping off onto the floor!
Artha: Oh, dear!
Celesta: Oh, that’d be terrible! That’s pretty good.
Artha: That musta been about the time, er, the years that Sam Petersen came to the country.
Jack: Well, see Sam came, I think, that’s says I was about 7th grade know what, he came to live with my aunt and uncle, and uh, they lived up the field about a mile from us. Another farm, joined. He went to school in Farmington and so uh, we were together a lot. We had an odd experience, it’s like I was up there once, their place, and uh, Sam and I were playing in the barn. And one thing that happened, Sam uh, you wanna hear all this?
Celesta: Yeah! Yeah, I do!
Jack: See we’re… The barn was full of horses, whole string of horses below, and we were up in the hay mow, above the horses. Well, Sam jumped up and grabbed a cross piece up there and was swinging around on it, and when he dropped off of it he went right through the barn, the hay mow floor, letting the feed out in front of the horses. And course, uh, you know what he let on cause when he went through the hole in the floor his feet was up and his arms too and uh, the horses just scared him to death, you know? They all whinnied and reared back and then just pretty near killed Sam and I run down there and, laughing, cause I thought it was funny. And to him it was anything but funny, you know? Cause he wasn’t feeling too good. But then another time in the same barn uh, see the chickens always run loose, you know, not always, some people had chicken pens, and some didn’t. But anyways, the chickens would get in the hay mow and uh, lay eggs, steal their nests out? Well uh, Sam and I was up in the barn, we found these eggs which were rotten, and so Sam for some reason he got out of the barn with a bunch of eggs, and everytime I’d start to come out he’d throw an egg at me! And finally, I got an egg and I stood right at this door and he got tired of waiting for me, started in to see uh, where I was, and I broke an egg right on top of his head. And it made it funnier cause he was always proud of his hair, it was thick and curly, you know? And I could just, he had to go to the house and wash his head and...
Celesta: Get rotten egg out of his hair? Pretty wavy hair?
Jack: Another thing that happened up there, see I stayed their one winter while, two or three months while the folks went to California?
Celesta: Oh!
Jack: And, in the evening when we’d eat Sam and I were supposed to wash the dishes. Well this one night, there was this plate that had been cracked pretty near clear across. Well anyway it finished breaking. And I took it (Sam didn’t know it, that it had broke) so I took it in there on the kitchen, on the dining room table, put it together and set a great big apple on it to hold it together, cause Sam always, before he went to bed he had to have something to eat. And uh sure enough, you know, pretty soon he come a tearing in with those two pieces of dish, and trying to explain to all of us how he didn’t break that dish! It just fell apart!
Artha: I think you were full of pranks. How about the time that uh, um, your mom had Bernice working for her in harvest time? When you were having so much fun.
Jack: Well, yeah, that was uh, my dad, Dad and Don Hopper and George Boyer had, had bought this thrashing machine together. And that was of course the old stationary, you know where it took… It was one of the smaller outfits and they just did their own harvesting. But uh, they um, took about twenty men but they fed them in the houses. Like when they were at our place, why, Mom would feed them; Aunt Bessie’s, why, she’d feed them and so then they’d, they’d always have a hired girl. And uh, Bernice helped Mom, and so um, we uh, this one guy used to come every year to harvest and uh, he kind of had a crush on Bernice. And Bernice was a big woman, you know, you remember?
Celesta: Oh yeah! I remember!
Jack: But uh, so after the deed at night, why Al, he’d always stay in the house, all the rest of the men would leave but here was this big long table and old Al sitting down here you know, admiring Bernice while she did dishes, and uh, I’d get behind Al, course, and uh, I’d go through all these motions, like all these love motions, you know? Of course Al didn’t know I was doing it back there and Bernice was up there, uh, trying to keep from laughing and it was always something like that. And once, uh, how’d that work? We uh, can’t remember just how it was, they got, was that Sam and Bernice got in the applesauce fight, er?
Artha: Well it was something about that but I can’t remember…
Jack: I don’t remember but it ended up why, uh, one of them got a wet dishrag, rack- wrapped around their neck, just like that!
*End session
Celesta: Ok.
Jack: Well there’s lot of things I haven’t thought of for years! Well, there used to be squirrels just every place. Just dens of them, you know, just like a pasture or something like that it’d just be uh, oh maybe half an acre just solid squirrel holes. And there was no way to get rid of them! Well, we, we tried to poison them, but it was, I think so many places for them to be. Like, there were lots of fences cause people had livestock and sometimes the fence rows would get ten or twenty foot wide with just brush and so many places for squirrels to- and there’s so many of them, you know, they’d- pretty hard on the crops. Like, the fence rows they’d eat out. But anyway in our pasture there at home we had a lot of squirrels so my dad bought uh, think it was 50 squirrel traps for me. And I wasn’t man enough to uh, set the traps, so he made me this two little sticks. Oh I suppose they were 18 inches long with a hinge. And I could put the traps in there you know and step on it, get the trap set, and I was supposed to get uh- and he made me a club to kill the squirrels with after I caught them. And it was a business deal cause he bought all this equipment and uh, I was supposed to get five cents for every two squirrel tails I brought back. And I did! And I caught, all of them pretty good! I had traps out there in the pasture,and I’d had them all the way up towards the cemetery, and once in a while I’d take them down to the creek. And once in a while you’d get a weasel, and they were mean! Still be alive and boy they’d just scare you to death before you’d get them killed or turned loose or whatever.
Celesta: Didn’t you have-?
Jack: And then later on the way they finally got rid of the squirrels uh, got, used cyanide. It was uh, well, now, you know, they’d, they wouldn’t let you buy it even prob- well I know they wouldn’t. But this, he called it cyanide gun, what you did you filled a jar and it was just an air deal and a hose and uh, it took two people. You’d stick this hose down a squirrel hole and it got a pump on it and shoot this, it pumped this cyanide (which was a powder) into the hole. And the, it was a, like a den you know they’d connect different holes together underneath. And this other fellow had to have a shovel and, so you’d see this smoke coming out of a hole someplace, you’d run over there and throw dirt on it, fill it up, here it’d come out of another one. And sometimes you’d get several holes. But what happened the cyanide when it hit the moisture it would turn to a gas, if it was deadly. Hardly ever a squirrel would come out. But if it did why sometimes it would just go a few feet and drop over dead. And sometimes you’d look in a hole, there’d be one or two of them in there dead and-
Celesta: Gee.
Jack: And uh, you think about it you know you’d wonder why it didn’t kill us too but and once, sometimes you would get a headache but you know we didn’t think anything about it only it really thinned the squirrels out til, and then too about that time people got tractors and they’d taken off the fence rows at all the places where squirrels lived so they could drive. But I made all my spending money there for quite a while and then I had this other deal a-going. It didn’t pay but, see I had a goat.
Celesta: Is that where Kirby gets that?
Jack: I suppose. Well, um, and these two fellahs came and they were, your uncles, Artha’s uncles, yeah! And they’d like to trade. And they came one day and they were having some kind of a trade with Dad. And then that, they had this little old 410 guage shotgun, single shot. And that was part of the trade, but um, I wanted it real bad. But I had this goat with me and I was listening to the whole deal, and finally I said, ‘Well, I’ll just, you can have the goat too.’ And that clinched the deal! Got um, whatever Dad was trading for he got, and I got the 410 shotgun, and Dad sent to Sears & Roebuck and got a whole case, 500 shells for it. And I was supposed to shoot the robins out of the strawberry, keep the robins out of the strawberries.
Celesta: Oh! You wouldn’t have any strawberries left!
Jack: And I did that. But uh, Leonard Green (and that was Bill’s dad)-
Celesta: Oh!
Jack: Came to work for Dad this one summer and he was a great big kid that caused me a lot of trouble. I had this, for one thing I had this big Mexican straw hat. It was great big. And I was out with my 410 shotgun and my Mexican hat in the strawberry patch waiting for robins and uh-
Celesta: Now how old were you then?
Jack: Oh, I dunno.
Artha: Twelve maybe? Do ya s’pose?
Jack: Whether it’s- Oh, I s’pose. Maybe. And uh, anyway Leonard said, uh, he wanted me to throw my hat up in the air and see if he could hit it with my shotgun, and I didn’t want to, but he said well, if he hit it and hurt it why he’d buy me a new hat. So I threw it up in the air, and it came down, and uh, he must have missed it cause we looked the hat all over and we thought maybe we saw one little hole in there and wasn’t sure. So he wanted me to do it again. And the next time he hit that straw hat, just blew it all to pieces! And um, course he never did buy me a new one, hat but um…
Celesta: What a disappointment!
Jack: But I got pretty good with that old shotgun, I could shoot squirrels and anything with it!
Artha: I’ve heard you talk about how he used to drive the car, showing off! It was his story, I guess.
Jack: Well, about that story.
Celesta: Well it was-
Jack: See we had, I dunno, there’s a few things maybe shouldn’t go on this tape.
Celesta: Oh, you want me to shut it off here?
Jack: Can you erase them? Or-
Celesta: Yeah! Well, you can put it on.
Jack: Do you want anybody’s names, that are still alive?
Celesta: Long as it’s not mine, go ahead!
Artha: Or mine.
Jack: Ah, I better not tell that.
Celesta: Can’t be that bad can it?
Jack: Well, see Blues... You know?
Celesta: I know the name.
Jack: Hill and Dorothy. You know where the junk pile was?
Celesta: Yeah.
Jack: And then there was this little old house, it was just pretty near terrible.
Celesta: Right down there on the creek?
Jack: Yeah.
Celesta: Ok.
Jack: They lived there, and Hill and Dorothy, well Leonard anyway he worked, was working for Dad. Well here one weekend he come with, home, back to work, and he had this old Model T Ford. And somebody had made it into, they called it bugs, you know, they took everything off, then they just made kind of a little body on there out of tin that pointed at the back and just a seat in there for two people. And course the Model T’s didn’t have gear shift levers they had three pedals there you stepped on them, you know to make them go and make them back up, and… Oh Leonard, he just delighted in the evenings I’d, course he’d get me in there with him, and he’d drive back and forth in front of Blue’s. Whole family’d come out to watch and he’d put on this show! And he’d uh, maybe he’d get down in there and work the pedals with his hands and have his feet stickin’ up! And Hill and Dorothy thought Leonard was the greatest guy in the world. It was-
Artha: Can’t you just see that!
Jack: It was really something!
Celesta: It’s a wonder he didn’t wreck it!
Jack: Well, there was no speed connected to it really, just, going back and forth up and down the road!
Artha: Don’t know where that was-
Jack: But this other thing that… See what we used to do was steal eggs. The hens laid the eggs in the, you know, to steal their nests out. Well, and of course in the chicken house too. But uh, we’d uh, steal a few eggs. Get a dozen eggs or two and uh-
Artha: You and Leonard?
Jack: No, not Leonard! But me, and uh, well Bob Torpey, Douglas Harris.
Celesta: Now were you get, were you getting older by now?
Jack: Not really.
Celesta: Oh okay!
Jack: I was old enough to know better! But you could take the eggs to town you know, and take them to the farmer’s warehouse, and they’d give you uh, you weren’t really buying them, they had uh, tokens they’d call them, you know. But the farmer’s warehouse it was their own money. So you’d sell the eggs, and get the tokens then you’d buy candy and um… Once I remember we even bought a can of pineapple and walked down the street and it-
Celesta: Somebody else’s eggs! Whose eggs did you steal? That’s what I wanna know!
Jack: Folk’s
Celesta: Oh! You’re folk’s!
Jack: But see, what I did, that, this that Leonard uh… He found out about it. And so up in the hay mow I had this uh, little bunch of eggs I was saving up. Boy, they had to get old, didn’t they?
Artha: Oh Gee!
Jack: But, um, Leonard found them. Never said a word to off the table eating. And um, he started talking about this bunch of eggs up in the barn. Course Dad’s right there, my face is getting redder all the time. And he was having the best time, just, yeah and this once, uh…
END TAPE II
TAPE III:
Jack: ...Casey I did.
Artha: Casey wouldn’t do all the things you did.
Celesta: Okay, it’s on.
Jack: It’s going?
Celesta: Back to the eggs.
Jack: Well once, uh, this is about the end of the egg stealing. In fact if we’d find an egg that was, a nest any place, like in town? In one of the old uh, Thelman schoolhouse where Jordan McNair lives? There was an old building? And somebody found out an hen was laying an egg, uh, had a nest in that old building.
Artha: Oh really?
Jack: So we gathered them! And um, this once, I think maybe it was Wayne Hickman, and me, and Douglas or somebody. Three of us anyway. We took our eggs to the Farmer’s Warehouse, and Henry Riggles was working there and he took them, and he said just, he took the eggs and he said just a minute and he went back, in the back room, and i suppose what he was gonna do was check them for age. But anyway, while he was gone, we got scared, we thought, you know-
Artha: Don’t wanna be caught with them.
Jack: Uh, well, we thought maybe he was going back to call the marshal or something, we didn’t know! And we took off, just left. So I think that was about the end of our-
Celesta: You ran away?
Artha: Your egg wrestling.
Celesta: Ohh. Well Janice said you had, uh, says, oh let’s see here. Says the first thing you remember are buggy trips on Old, on your horse, Old Sam.
Jack: I got one more bad story.
Celesta: Oh! Oh! Oh we’re not through with the bad ones yet!
Jack: Well, at the pool hall, this old guy that run it, Jim Stewart, he had deal on uh, he bought nickels worth of chocolates, see. And uh, you bit the top off. They were most of them white inside, but if you got a pink one, then you got a free candy bar. So, I think it probably was Henry Hathaway that figured this out, we went over to Ralph’s Economy Store and bought a sack of chocolates that were all pink inside. So we come over to Jim’s then, and we bought a nickel’s worth, and we’d uh, kinda turn our back when we bit one of his off, and then we’d uh, bite the top off one of the pink ones from Ralph Economy Store. Course, every one of them was a free candy bar. And Old Jim was getting pretty worried about it cause, they were all, there were no white ones they were all pink! And um, anyway, it was, it wasn’t long before the deal was off, you know, it just, they lasted only about one or two days. And he couldn’t, give a free candy bar away-
Artha: I think you could tell another one.
Jack: Hmm?
Artha: You kids made some wine or something and said that you found it.
Jack: No, no, we’re not talking about that.
Celesta: Well, you better, let’s hear it!
Jack: No, we can’t talk about it, we gotta quit that.
Artha: Those are funny things. Those are funny things.
Celesta: Get that down! Okay, you wanna go back to the buggy?
Jack: Oh, the buggy.
Celesta: Now this is, what’d’you travel around in a buggy before you got a car.
Jack: Well, the way Mom… I think we had a car. We probably had a model T Ford then, I’m not sure. But we must’ve, well, we did! Had a Model T Ford but Mom uh, couldn’t drive it. But we had this old horse, it was Old Sam, and a buggy. So, uh, we’d go out to uh, well Aunt Mary’s. And that was about 3 miles out there from where we lived. And it’d be Mom and I and the buggy and Old Sam, and Sam really hated to go. But uh, she’d keep using the whip on him and get there, but on the way back he was really anxious to come, you know, he- and uh, well Aunt Mary always entertained us real well. She had, uh, made taffy. Candy?
Celesta: Oh, yeah!
Jack: Bout, first thing you know, maybe she’d just have this taffy all stirred up and have it us kids out there a-pulling it until it was ready to eat. And, and she always gave us a haircut, whether you needed it or not, everybody, everybody that came got a haircut.
Celesta: I remember getting, giving haircuts after I was married, wasn’t she? People up there?
Jack: Oh, I think probably, yeah. Yeah, all the kids would come home with Russ and Roger, they’d get a haircut, and, in fact the barber in town didn’t like her real well cause she was giving too many haircuts for free. But, I don’t remember much about Old Sam only that she had such a heck of a time getting him there and how fast he could get home, and, it seemed like quite a trip, you know, bout three miles there and, whipping Sam one way.
Celesta: Running, running all the way home.
Jack: Yeah.
Celesta: Well when did she learn to drive then? … Never did?
Jack: Well, we got, uh, I remember driving the Willys-Knight.
Celesta: The what?
Jack: Well, it’s a car, i dunno what, what year that’d been about, well I dunno… ‘28? 7? ‘28?
Celesta: You called it the Willis?
Jack: Willys-Knight.
Celesta: Oh. Willys-Knight?
Jack: Yeah. And it was a pretty nice car, but the garage… I remember once Mom, uh, you had to back out of the garage down a little, little ramp onto the road. And Mom backed it out and she didn’t get it stopped and she backed right into the barbed wire fence and cut the back end of it all up.
Celesta: Is that…
Jack: And then, oh yeah! And then this Willys-Knight it was a different kind of an engine. It just run real quiet, and it didn’t have valves like an ordinary engine. It had called it a sleeve. And it was real alright only that really, it didn’t take long till it’d get using an awful lot of oil. It used to, blue smoke would just come out of it real bad. But anyway I come home from school once, and I don’t know I had to been old enough to know better. Dad was working in the field, and I got the Willys-Knight out, and I got a coal chisel and a hammer and I cut a hole in the exhaust pipe, right between the engine and the muffler.
Celesta: Oh, no!
Jack: And, that old thing just roared and, uh. They were having a ball game over town, baseball. So I motored over to the ball game with it. And uh, with all the smoke rolling out of that hole! And, and uh, went to the ball game, came home. Then I got worried about getting that hole plugged back up before Dad found out about it. And so I remember I wrapped a piece of tin around the hole. Around the pipe. Took some hay wire and pliers and wired it, but it was just partly fixed. And that Sunday we all got in it to go to Hale’s down in Steptoe. Dad kept saying, “This car sure sounds funny.” Kept saying it, so finally I had to tell him about the hole.
Artha: How about the time you ran off the road with, with the truck? Put a dent-
Jack: We had this Model A Ford truck. I think it was ‘29 model. And it had a... Beside the gear shift lever down on the floor was two little buttons. You stepped on one and everything was in low gear, for you know, lower speed. Step, pushed it the other way an it was, uh, high. And Dad and I were over uh, remember where the old slaughter house was?
Celesta: Mmhmm, across the pond?
Jack: Over on that hill. Picking, building, fixing fence is what we were doing.Well Dad told me to take the Model A Ford truck and go home and get some more fence posts and coming-- just as I started down that slaughterhouse hill I uh, decided I wanted it in the high one. And I was looking down in there, looking for the button and when I looked back up I was just straddling that bank you know. Two wheels was in the road and the other two over the bank and i got just past the slaughterhouse and I turned it straight down and I went through the uh, the fence, which wasn’t very good anyway. Right through Joe Schnurr’s uh, potato patch. Well I, I stopped in the potato patch. And I got out, and I remember, see we had uh, horses over there along the creek that was all fenced. And the horses were scared, they’d heard all the noise and uh, but Dad didn’t know about it! And I unhooked all the wire, barbed wire, made a big circle around the slaughterhouse and went on home and got my posts and went back. Never said a word about it. And that night we were all in the kitchen where we lived. And uh, the phone rang and it was Eve Rees. Well Eve lived you know out in the evergreen country, and he rubbered. It was a party line you know, 16 people on that line.
Celesta: 16?!
Jack: 14 to 16. And he never missed a phone call, but it was him. And of course Dad answered the phone and, uh… I could, laying there on the old cot, you called it. It wasn’t a davenport it was a couch. It was a couch! I was laying there on that listening. And uh, they were talking about my accident, Eve was wanted to know who it was that run through Joe Schnurr’s potato patch and Dad didn’t know. And, so when that conversation was over I had to tell him just what had happened. And then, see Joe, the Schnurrs had the meat market in town. And then every time I’d, Dad’d go to the meat market, and I used to always like to go with him because Joe would uh, give me a weenie to eat. But uh, the first time after this happened I went in there with Dad to get some meat. Pretty soon Joe wanting to know who run, who it was that run into his potato patch and through his fence and, he just, course I suppose Eve had told him, I dunno how, who did but, and he was really giving me a bad time, just kidding me, but I uh, didn’t like to talk about it!
Celesta: Did it make Grandpa mad?
Jack: No, I don’t think so! He must have took it pretty good. But he always said afterwards the truck didn’t steer right. I dunno what, I don’t think it hurt it any, but he said it didn’t steer right!
Artha: You had another close call when, um, what’s his name out there in the flat that came after you about the horse? The Lisenbees hitched up the horse?
Jack: Oh yeah! That was about the most serious thing that ever happened to us! They had, see it was kinda, it was early in the spring and the weather was muddy and rainy, and. But Dad was building this garage, and uh, Palmer Lisenbee was helping him and uh, I think Barney Powell. Lisonbee-
Celesta: Is that the garage where the little house is on?
Jack: Yeah. But the Lisenbee kids were over there and Charlie and Dude. Well Henry Straw lived, do you remember where they lived? He lived?
Celesta: Mm-mm.
Jack: It was just… Well where Ms Green lived, well, Henry Straw was next. And he had a horse that he kept turning loose and uh, see he walked with a cane. He was kinda old, I guess. But he turned his horse loose to eat grass you know, up and down the road. So uh, this one day, we knew, Henry spent a lot of time in town, we knew he was in town, His horse was loose so Charlie and Dude and I hooked, caught the horse, took it in the barn, got a harness all fixed on it and uh, we had this little, oh it was a, guess you’d call it a stone bolt- just two wooden runners you know with a platform on it. And we hooked onto that, had an apple box on there to set on, and we was driving around with Henry’s horse. And we go, going towards the cemetery, course it was a dirt road then- mud. And by golly we saw Henry coming! And we got to the cemetery quick as we could. And we unhooked, and we threw the harness in the, you know then it was just a lot a rosebrush, the stubble. We threw the harness in there, went across the field for home, and uh, Mom wasn’t home. So we went up, went in the house, went up the stairs, hiding, and you know Henry came. And he, mad, and he talked to Dad and Palmer about it. And they couldn’t calm him down and he went in the house and we could hear him! We were upstairs and he was downstairs just thumping on the floor all around with that old cane and uh, but he didn’t come upstairs. But what he did he’d found the harness and he took the bridle home with him, gonna make us come and get it. So uh, we just couldn’t make ourselves do that. So one day, just a few days later, Palmer stopped there, and got the bridle and brought it home. But Henry, once I got close enough to him, see I always walked right by there to go to school and I had to change my route, and uh. But one day he got close enough to me to let me have it with the cane.
Celesta: Oh, he hit you with it?
Jack: Yeah.
Celesta: Oh, gee!
Jack: And uh, I think it was Dude that he made a swing at! But he never got close to Charlie. But, he finally got over it.
Artha: Mrs. Green and Jenny were awfully nice to you, weren’t they? When you were little?
Jack: Yeah, they were our neighbors. Mrs. Green and then Jenny was the daughter that was the school teacher and she never got married but uh, I was down there a lot in the summer cause Jenny would just spend hours reading to me and cutting out all kinds of paper things. And, then later on you see after Mrs. Green passed away, course Jenny was away and, and uh, that was two acres they lived on, that’s, I bought it then after that you know, it was…
Celesta: I can remember that house being there.
Jack: Oh, do you? Yeah that’s the place.
Artha: That old house was moved over to town.
Jack: Yeah, I was, I sold the house to Hulie [Huldrich] Kelm?
Celesta: Oh!
Jack: He moved it over there for a kind of garage. But, ya there was several houses down there then. There was like Henry Straw’s and Mrs. Green’s and then Stuart’s right there.
Celesta: Yeah, I remember Stuart’s. Henry Rutt’s.
Jack: Henry Rutt’s yeah.
Celesta: Another [Jake] Rutt up on the corner. Well, Dad what was the population about back then you always talk about it being pretty big.
Jack: Well, I really don’t know then about uh, what the population was but, see like Mom said at one time it was 2000 and, but the railway roundhouses were there then so they had that, and uh, there were two depots. The Union Pacific went through and then the Great Northern just, it was the end of the line there, they’d come in and back out. But, it was a depot, and, it was uh, two stockyards for each one where they’d, people’d bring their pigs and their cows and stuff in to ship them and then the apple packing plant, Cameron’s was on the Great Northern. And uh, so when they took the roundhouse out, that’s when farming started the downhill but that was before my time really. They moved them to Tekoa, and uh, but then too by that time why, I guess the Indian trade was quite a thing, they’d come over to Farmington to trade, and that was something, another story that my grandfather used to tell about his harness shop. The Indians used to get paid in cash for, something, land or whatever. And they came to town and bought everything in town. And Grandpa said they came into his shop and bought all the harnesses and uh, even his tools! Said he got them trained, next morning went to Spokane and stocked up again. But there was an undertaking parlor there in Farmington then, and uh, one old Indian even bought the hearse! And it was of course pulled with horses, but he used the hearse to take his family to church on in, on Sundays.
Celesta: Is that right? Oh, gee.
Artha: What was that little story about Louie Sam talking to your Grandpa Baldwin, and you were peeking through his legs and he says, is that your papoose, John?
Jack: Oh, this one old Indian Louie Sam used to, he’d, never quit trading in farm, he kept, he’d come over there all the time. But like, Grandpa Baldwin you know, he could communicate with Indians. This once I can remember, Dad, er, Grandpa Baldwin was talking to Louie Sam, they were going through all the motions and the different sounds, you know, however. And uh, I was a little scared, and I was down between my Grandpa’s legs a-looking through and, at Louie. And pretty soon Louie just pointed down there and he said, uh, “Johnny- is that your papoose?”
Celesta: Well, where’d he live? Over, on the mountain, or?
Jack: Yeah, he lived over the mountain on the reservation, but uh, he used to come to our place. Had a buggy and a horse and, couldn’t, oh maybe come after a little a, bale of hay or something, sack of oats or something. And he’d get there about meal time, folks would ask him in to eat, and he’d just uh- The way I remember him he was pretty wide, and not too tall. And he wore this pants, that, oh- Overalls that were just patched so you couldn’t believe it. In fact even once uh, at the pool hall had recovered their pool table, in that old green -? They’d thrown the cloth out behind, and he come with patches on his pants made out of that.
Celesta: Oh!
Artha: We used to call Jack “Louie Sam” because he wore so many patches!
Jack: But he’d come home, over home there and they’d ask him in to eat and he’d, he’d just uh, holler, “Hoah” and he’d throw one line out on the ground on one side and one out on the other and just crawl out and come in the house and sit down. And I remember, probably the first time he did that the folks didn’t know, you know, of course they were Catholic and, the Indians, and they started passing him things (we’d already eaten) and he just set them all down and, then he crossed himself and just ate.
Celesta: He was very religious huh?
Jack: Yeah, he was a real good old Indian, everybody liked him. But,...
Celesta: Well, what about the telephone, you said there was about 16 people on one line?
Jack: Yeah, course then they had party lines they called them, you know? And each, uh, you had a central office in Farm-, in town, and uh. It was generally just in somebody’s house. And uh, then each line out of time, like ours was the Evergreen line, and the farmer was responsible for it, you build it and kept it up. So every year supposed to have a, uh, course they’d one ring, if it rang, it rang all of them, but uh, so anybody that wanted to listen they could do it, but everybody that picked up the phone made your line that much weaker. So if too many got on, you got so weak you couldn’t hear anything you’d have to ask them to, someone to hang up. But everybody, and like the, well like Boots Godwin that was uh, er the Godwins, his mother and Boots both run this phone office for years and, and uh, pretty good deal in a way ‘cause they knew everything. Everything that was going on they knew. And I never did even have to know a phone number, that’s why I can’t talk on the phone yet now, because I’d just call up Central, one ring you know, and Boots would answer and I’d say uh, “Get me Aunt Mary.” He knew my voice, maybe he’d say, “Well, they’re not home today, they went-” someplace, you know, Spokane maybe. But uh, like the phone line then they’d, ‘bout once a year they’d have a meeting in the Evergreen Schoolhouse to figure out, ‘bout rebuilding another line you know to make it last another year. And, it but, and uh, I remember the first one I went to, course Charlie Lisenbee lived on the Boyer place then, and he went too. And it was our first meeting. And it was more of a history lesson than a meeting, you know it, all the old timers got to talking about things that had happened in, over the years, and it was really interesting.
Celesta: Mmhmm. It would be! Do you remember when you got the phone?
Jack: Got the-
Celesta: First, your first phone?
Jack: Oh, no. I think uh, I I don’t, it was, we had a phone as long as I can ever remember. Uh, the service was pretty bad really, you know. If you got long distance, generally it was just noisy and pretty, pretty hard to hear. Sometimes you could, well, sometimes better than others, and the phone lines would get, fall down once in a while and somebody’d have to go out and, actually the poles were just, we’d go up the mountains and cut some poles and stick them in the ground and lucky if they’d last a year or two, but uh, better than nothing, that’s for sure.
Celesta: At least it’s better than the new rates we pay now.
Jack: Yeah well, that’s right! I think, uh, what would the cost maybe three, sometimes three or four dollars a year to keep the line up?
Celesta: Is that right?
Artha: Three or four dollars.
Jack: Yeah, see at the meeting why they’d figure out how many poles were, poles they were going to have, and they were gonna have to buy some new insulators or new wire or something and figure out how much a piece it was gonna cost us and the way I remember it that, I may be wrong but, just seems like that particular meeting it was decided maybe three and a half a piece or something like that would do the job.
Celesta: Well, that’d be pretty good.
Jack: See Isaac Schwartz, this, when we uh, at the meeting we set the date in the Spring when we were all gonna get together and rebuild the line. Well there were one fellah that were real good with climbers, climbing poles. But he got tired so Isaac Schwartz decided he’d do it. And there was two funny things happened that day and that was one of them. Isaac sat down, he put on the climbers, and he started up the pole, and he just got a few feet off the ground and uh, his feet kept-a-going but the top part of him kinda stopped. Pretty soon his knees was up here, and uh, he slipped. And down he comes, sliding down the pole, and Ol’ Charlie just, I thought he’d never never get over laughing, funniest thing he’d ever seen! And Isaac just went over and set down, and never said a word, he just took them off, that was the end of that! Well, then uh, August Danelson, real bowlegged. He was short, and just as bowlegged as anybody could get! So he got to telling Charlie and I, course we were the youngest. We were just like, probably a couple a little kids to all the rest of them, you know. And uh, August got to telling us about this big old sow that got loose, and he was trying to catch her. And he said, “You know, she ran right between my legs and never even touched me!” And of course we were tickled to death over that, too. And, but those are two things that happened that day that I’ll never forget.
END TAPE III
TAPE IV
Celesta: Ok, tell it.
Jack: What will people think?
Celesta: I don’t care what they think!
Artha: Your great-grandchildren would get a kick out of it.
Celesta: Better tell it.
Artha: What kind of a grandpa did they have?
Jack: We had a-, down the creek there was this little island. And it was, that was our boat, it was kinda shaped like a boat. And of course, probably only a couple foot of water on each side, you know, to it. But, this one day Homer Blue and uh, Douglas and I were playing down at the creek. And we were, I don’t remember, how, why, whether we were pirates or what. But anyway, we tied Homer up! And I was supposed to guard him, and Douglas was going to go up the creek and get the rest of the pirates, which there wasn’t any, but Homer didn’t know it. And uh, but while I was guarding him he got away! He got loose and he took off for Frank Leonard’s ‘cause, and his dad was over there. His dad used to work for Frank. And so, uh, I’d lost the man! And then, you see, there again I was afraid to go by Blues’. Everytime I had to go to town I had to go a different way cause for a long time, I was afraid to go by Blues’ because I was afraid of what Homer’s dad was going to do to me.
Celesta: You must have had a lot of routes to town!
Jack: Had a crisis every few days.
Artha: Did your mother know about all these that you did?
Jack: Huh?
Artha: Did your folks know about all those things?
Jack: No, I don’t suppose, but uh. Then like, the lame prince story why-
Celesta: Ya, we gotta hear the lame prince story!
Jack: Okay, you’ll hear it. Carl Grammy and Douglas Harris come to play with me.
Celesta: And how old are you?
Jack: Well, I dunno.
Celesta: Oh.
Artha: Pretty small.
Jack: We were, I dunno what grade we, maybe third, or fourth. I dunno. But anyway, Douglas decided he wanted to play lame prince. And Carl and I didn’t know what that kind of, that game was, but uh, Douglas told us how. And I was a horse, and I had to get on my hands and knees, and Carl Grammy was the saddle and he laid over me with his hands together and that was the stirrups, that was the saddle.So Douglas walked around the cow pasture til he found a real fresh cow pile, and he walked in it, then he come back and crawl in the saddle. And uh, so, Carl found out what had happened to him, started bawling and just took off across the pasture for home. So that was the end of that! And then the only one I’m gonna tell, because, you know, people think I’m-
Artha: A bad little boy!
Jack: -something wrong with me. I’m… is when I had my birthday party, one of them, which was in April. April 24th. And mom had this party for me, it was, well they, it was just Douglas Harris and Bob Torpey. They come over to eat at noon, and Dad was in the field working with horses. And it was cold, awful cold day, and he was out there with a blanket wrapped around him trying to keep warm and he told us at noon, “Now don’t go to the swimming pool- hole.” Which was just a, we made a dam across the creek. But uh, we went anyway. Soon as Dad went to work we went to go swimming and uh, I was just, just had my clothes off, and I saw Dad coming across the field on foot. So I started putting my clothes back on, and I just got my shoes on when he got there. And he give me a boot for home, and every time I’d slow up he’d give me another one and uh, that was the end of the party! Cause uh, Bob and uh, Doug never come back! They just kept going for home, so that was the end of that one.
Celesta: Do you remember any other birthday parties?
Jack: Yeah, I remember going over to uh, Bob Torpey’s. And uh, Bob’s dad, Old Bill is kind of a rough, gruff old man you know, and I, I was kinda leery of him, you know? He was, you know, I shouldn’t have been cause he wasn’t, he just looked that way. But I remember we set down to eat, and Mrs. Torpey was just a wonderful cook. And everybody was just quiet you know and not saying a word, and Mrs. Torpey had made these, they were boiled eggs, whole, but they were in some kind of a gravy. And, this is all I remember about it, pretty soon old Bob’s dad took his fork and he stabbed one of those eggs, course it was covered in the gravy and he just come right around under everybody’s nose with it that he could reach, you know, just smearing gravy on them, and course then after that why, it was fun, you know, we kinda come out of it. Yeah, I think that’s the only birthday party I ever had!
Artha: You didn’t tell much about your school days.
Celesta: Oh, yeah! We haven’t heard anything about school yet!
Jack: School? Well, there’s not much to tell! Only that, uh-
Celsta: Bet there is!
Jack: Just how many kids there was then, and the schoolhouse was, in Farmington was full of kids! Just completely full! And, um, I dunno how many that would have been, then, maybe a hundred and something you know, but, besides that there was all the little country schools. Evergreen, Pigeon Hollow, and Seldom Seen. And then it got to where there were fewer and fewer all the time, and the country, the country schools closed and those kids came to Farmington. But even then it just, people moved away and, and uh it got to be fewer all the time until, well you know, finally it got down to eight grades. And, I think the last time they had high school there was one or two that graduated class and uh- was it-?
Artha: There were years where there was more than two graduating.
Jack: So they just had the eight grades, then finally they had to do away with that. They all went to Oakesdale. But it was ‘cause, quite a thing to think how, you know how many people left, and the ones that were left a lot of them were older people, the kids were already gone. And now, even like Oakesdale doesn’t have enough kids for school, hardly. And-
Celesta: Yeah, those are getting smaller.
Jack: Yeah, and they’re getting smaller.
Celesta: Well, did you like school?
Jack: No, I didn’t like school in particular. I, uh, couldn’t wait for Friday night. The week was the longest thing in the world, and uh, then I couldn’t wait for the end of the year.
Celesta: Did you have good teachers?
Jack: We had some real good teachers and some that weren’t. But we did have some that were just, and uh, now, you know, later, after it was too late, why, it’s, you just wished you’d a taken more advantage of it, you know and uh, really appreciated what we had.
Celesta: Well, did you have parties at school? Or sports or-
Jack: Well, they had basketball and baseball but uh, actually we never had a, a good team. You know, and good enough to, generally if they could win the one or two games a year why we were doing pretty good. Just didn’t have that many I guess to… No, I didn’t ever really care much uh, there were some subjects I like! I liked, uh, oh like manual training, and things like that!
Celesta: What did you make?
Jack: General Science some of those things I liked, but uh, course soon as I got out and found out what I should have done it was too late. Then like, my dad he didn’t want me to be a farmer, thought that was about the worst thing I could do, and uh, he wanted me to be a pharmacist, have a drugstore. And I didn’t want to do that. But I had two things. I thought I’d like to be in the forest, you know, forest service, you know forester, whatever you call them. And then, or a architect. But I turned out to be a farmer.
Celesta: Huh, you didn’t like it huh?
Jack: I think probably I, liked it better than anything, maybe. Well, if you’d done something else you probably liked it.
Artha: You went on a trip with the Sherfeys to Canada one time.
Jack: yeah, I used to have hay fever, so this one summer I had it real bad and my Aunt and Uncle Sherfey were going to take their vacation, go to Canada. So my folks decided to send me along maybe if my hay fever would be better. And uh, Mom had sent some brand new blue bandana handkerchiefs, and we got up some place above Spokane and Aunt Florence turned around and took a look at me and my face was all blue! And she thought something real serious was wrong with- see I blow my nose so much and this blue handkerchief was sweating all over my face! And it was kind of funny deal, we got up you know, and, well it’s close to Calgary, Nanton, wherever that is. And uh, Uncle Frank had a relative that had a farm. And we went out there to see him and he had oats right out there and uh, just, over the hay fever. In fact I got over it some place the other side of Spokane, and didn’t have it again ‘til we got back about the same area.
Celesta: Maybe you should have farmed someplace else!
Jack: Yeah, I should have a farm in Canada!
Celesta: Canada! We could move to Canada. Well, were you involved with getting a cow in the principal’s office? Didn’t I hear something about that once?
Jack: With doing what?
Celesta: Cow in the principal’s office?
Jack: Cow? Oh no. No.
Celesta: Or was that later?
Jack: No, we painted a cow green one time. But it wasn’t around the school house, this was Halloween night.
Celesta: Where was that?
Jack: What have, what’s this girl gonna think of when, of when she hears all this?
Celesta: She’ll understand the rest of us when she knows where we came, the training and the background we’ve had!
Jack: Well this was Halloween night, see we were, we were someplace in high school. And uh, see we was, uh, well yeah! Cause it was Depression times. And Hoover was President, see? And things were getting worse cause uh, nobody had uh, any money at all. And we knew it cause we heard our folks talk about it so much. But, uh, this was Hathaways again. We painted uh,... What was Katherine Fisher’s son?
Artha: Theodore?
Jack: Theodore Fisher’s cow!
Artha: Really?
Jack: Yeah! We had some green paint, I don’t remember it was kind of a thin grade paint of some kind but we uh, she was staked out someplace around town and we painted her green. And then uh, that Allen Hayfield Service Station. They had the outhouses, where the restroom was like an outhouse built on to the garage. And I remember we made a long arrow clear along the garage pointing to the restroom, and put above it, “Hoover’s Prosperity.”
Celesta: Oh, gee.
Jack: So you know we were old enough to think.
Celesta: Yeah, I guess so!
Artha: To spell anyway.
Celesta: Get the idea of what it was all about. Well, what else about the Depression? Now how old were- you would have been older then.
Jack: Yeah, I was uh… Oh.
Artha: Going into high school almost. Or middle school.
Jack: See I, the first thing I remember about the Depression was my dad coming home from town, walking, across the field. And when he got there he was telling Mom that the bank closed. And all the money they had in the world was right here in his pocket and it was just a little handful of change. And uh, and people didn’t have anything for quite a while! It was just uh, it was people out of work. You know? And then they didn’t have like all the relief and all those things like they do now. But they, um, guess I shouldn’t get into politics in this thing but-
Celesta: No, that’s- yeah!
Jack: But just as soon as, uh, Theodore Roosevelt was elected president it just seemed like overnight he started doing things. And he started all these public works. And there was a lot of criticism then, you know, about it, but um. Like they started Coulee Dam. And uh, first they had like, with the CC camps. And that took all the young people that couldn’t find work they could join that and they could go into the mountains. A lot of them were from Eastern States, New York, and they got out here into the mountains and they built trails, and they built- well like the buildings at uh, at uh, Rocky Point. All those-
Celesta: Orange Camp and stuff?
Jack: All the, no the Lodge! All those buildings, you know. Real nice work, course they‘d have supervisors. And uh, they only got a dollar a day, the way I remember it. But they got, uh, at least they had something to do! And they were building something that’s, a lot of it’s still standing, you know? And uh, and like Coulee Dam, people, that took a lot of help, you know? And people just moved out of Farmington. Just families moved up there and went to work. And then the banks, they closed them all! And up ‘til then there’d never been any, uh, uh, insurance you know, at a bank. Went broke, your just broke, you know, there was no Federal insurance or anything, to… But when they opened again they were uh, on a sound footing, and uh, and things started getting better! But then, of course, uh, took several years. But, even like, even like the road up to our place, up to the cemetery, that had always been a dirt road until then, and then uh-
Artha: WPA? Is that the code?
Jack: WPA? Yeah. That’s what they called it. Anyway there were people that were out of work, you know, and they could go to work doing these public jobs. And uh, they didn’t get much, I it was, I wouldn’t say for sure whether it was a dollar a day, an hour or what. But, and it was all, pretty near all hand work. Pick and shovels and wheelbarrows. But they came out for one thing like our, to the cemetery, dug those ditches by hand. And uh, and like Dad had this old truck, and Uncle Jerry and different ones, would donate the truck. They’d go down to the creek, and these guys would shovel a load of gravel on, out of the creek, go out, drive the truck to the road, you know, or the project, shovel gravel off, get our gravel, and that was the first gravel that was out our way. And I still think it was a lot better than uh, doing nothing. You know, just letting things go. Cause it was, well there were people starving, that’s all! And uh, specially the cities where they couldn’t raise a garden or, and uh-
Celesta: I was gonna say, at home at least you knew how to grow food and look after yourselves.
Jack: Yeah. But you couldn’t imagine how, and then I told you about working there for Roy Torpey for 16 days and getting a check for 16 dollars.
Celesta: I don’t remember that!
Jack: Well that’s, uh… I got this job. I went up there and plowed one fall. I worked 16 days. And you didn’t fool around, you know, you helped milk the cows in the morning, then you plowed all day, noon you probably walked down to the house and carried a couple five gallon cans of gas back to the tractor. At night, you come in and milk the cows again, and when I got through he gave me a check for $16. And uh, I was happy!
Artha: Weren’t you out of high school then? Or were you still in high school? It was about that time.
Jack: I think I was still in high school. Can’t remember for sure. But anyway, with that, see I had my old Model T Ford and with that $16 I could send in the sale catalog and get four brand new tires. So that’s just, and I had, also I remember about that time I sent, I got a
.22 rifle, single shot, and it was less than $4. Like $3.98 or something. Springfield .22. And a little box of
socket wrenches, I can’t remember
what they cost now, whether it was 2 something, or, but, they were just, you know, compared to now you just can’t believe how cheap things were!
Celesta: Well, did you have, um, did they have community parties or picnics or gatherings or things like that?
Jack: Oh, yeah! Yeah like, in fact just this morning I saw Laurence Wright and he was talking about the dances they used to have at KP Hall, you know? And uh, course they, always somebody that could play. There, in those, at that dance, generally it was it the Badts, George Badt played the violin, fiddle! And the oldest girl, was her name Blanche? Played the piano. And Roy played the, um, accordion. And none of them needed music, you know, probably never, none of them had ever had a lesson in their life, but they could just play! And uh, Then they, course they’d have a big potluck, generally supper, and dance ‘til early morning, and maybe pass the hat for the orchestra, and then like, Evergreen Schoolhouse it was just something went on for years! They’d just have a, well I suppose it went on, it was in the winter, I don’t think they did it in the Summer too did they? But Saturday nights they’d have a dance out there and
Artha: ------?
Jack: Same thing.
Celesta: Take the kids?
Jack: Hmm?
Celesta: Take the kids?
Jack: Take the kids. Put them to sleep around, put the bed, the school desks all around the outside edge, you know, and kids would sleep on that. And you’d get your quadrilles and square dances and but there again you know there was always people around that could play. Like uh, well Tracy Ross, and Clarence Jensen and uh, Roy Palmer used to call for the quadrilles. And uh, Roy Palmer played the fiddle didn’t he?
Artha: it seems like he did.
Jack: But there was uh...
Artha: Mr. Munger.
Jack: Munger! Yeah, he’s the guy I’m trying to think of. He’d play, but his favorite was Redwing. That was pretty near everything was Redwing. And uh, that Stanley Chance, he lived up there for a long time and he could play a steel guitar. And somebody would be a-chording away on the organ or piano or whatever and. This once they had a Christmas party up there, and they had the Christmas tree with real candles on it. Cause, they didn’t even have electricity. No electricity. Just gas lights hanging up. But they had the program. And um, Cleat Boyer was Santa Claus. So while he was getting the presents off the tree to pass to all the kids after the program, he caught his beard on fire. Remember that, had to put that out.
Celesta: Oh, gee! You’d die if somebody did that now! Well, what about, uh, you mentioned World War I and the train coming through. How old would you have been then?
Jack: I wasn’t very old, if I was born in ‘15 and the war come along about ‘18. But um, I can remember this train coming through. Big long freight train, lot of flat cars. And they had their, they had cannons on it and they had tanks and all this equipment and what I think I’m right that uh, they stopped through all the little towns. Through all the towns you know and there was kind of ta thing where people get all excited and buy Liberty Bonds which the money went for the war effort. And um, but seeing Kaiser Wilhelm- he was the chairman that they blamed all the war on, so, caused the war, started the war. And uh, they burned him! Right there in effigy, if that’s the word for it. But he was uh, the devil. And I, I dunno, I was just a little kid of course, so he might of looked, might not have been as big as I thought he was but he might have been eight or ten foot tall at least! Just made out of red cloth and the horns and the spear and the long forked tail and, and uh, that was the Kaizer. And they burned him which made quite an impression on me and-
Celesta: Was everybody yelling and clapping and stuff?
Jack: I suppose, I dunno. But uh, that’s really all I remember of it only, things I heard, heard afterwards you know? Stories about, about like Bill King. This is something Aunt Etta always told cause he was black, you know? And then a black person was uh, kind of out of it with a lot of people but uh, he went to war. And she said when they, the boys come home everybody was there to meet the train and welcome their ones that got back home, and Bill, nobody. He just got off the train and walked over the mountain to home, you know? And she always really thought that wasn’t right, which it wasn’t. He might not have even thought anything about it you know, himself, he just went home. Oh yeah, the other day I was down there at Tom Miller’s, you know, getting tires? And while I was waiting he handed me this, see these the, call it the American Legion…
Celesta: The what?
Jack: Oh, ?? Vietnam. Huh? The what?
Celesta: No, in the legion.
Jack: Tom. But anyways he was making this scrapbook of uh, and he just had me look through it you know, while I was waiting. It was real interesting and the, by the way, one of the first things I run across was this old piece of newspaper and it told about uh, John Farrington. See he got wounded in that World War I, got shot in the arm. And uh, uh, it told about him, what had happened and, and uh getting back you know and all about it. But I thought that, I’d just opened it up and just right away I saw that article about John Farrington.
END TAPE
These interviews were recorded as a school project for Kelly Rosenbeck.
**Thank you for reading, and letting me share Jack with you again.
“Sharing tales of those we've lost is how we keep from really losing them.”
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